Survivors recall horror of Wesson mass killing

WESSON FAMILY MASS MURDERS

Published 4:00 am, Monday, September 14, 2009

Photo: Courtesy Alysia Sofios

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Undated handout picture of Gypsy (left), author Alysia Sofios, and Rosie on the Santa Cruz boardwalk. In June 2005, Marcus Wesson was found guilty of killing nine children in his Fresno home the year before. Today, surviving family members Ð who escaped or were not in the house at the time Ð are speaking publicly for the first time about the physical, mental and sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Wesson. less

Undated handout picture of Gypsy (left), author Alysia Sofios, and Rosie on the Santa Cruz boardwalk. In June 2005, Marcus Wesson was found guilty of killing nine children in his Fresno home the year before. ... more

Photo: Courtesy Alysia Sofios

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Photo: Jeff Chiu, File, AP

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Undated handout picture of Marcus Wesson with niece Rosie (left) and daughters Lise and Gypsy. In June 2005, Wesson was found guilty of killing nine children in his Fresno home the year before. Today, surviving family members Ð who escaped or were not in the house at the time Ð are speaking publicly for the first time about the physical, mental and sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Wesson. less

Undated handout picture of Marcus Wesson with niece Rosie (left) and daughters Lise and Gypsy. In June 2005, Wesson was found guilty of killing nine children in his Fresno home the year before. Today, surviving ... more

Photo: Courtesy Elizabeth Wesson

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Marcus Wesson responds to the media by saying "I love you" as he is led into a police truck by Fresno police in Fresno, Calif., on Saturday, March 13, 2004. Wesson is being held in the city jail pending nine counts of murder. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
ALSO RAN: 03/16/2004 less

Marcus Wesson responds to the media by saying "I love you" as he is led into a police truck by Fresno police in Fresno, Calif., on Saturday, March 13, 2004. Wesson is being held in the city jail pending nine ... more

Photo: JEFF CHIU, AP

Survivors recall horror of Wesson mass killing

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In June 2005, Marcus Wesson was found guilty of killing nine of his children in his Fresno home the year before. He had fathered them with his wife, daughters and nieces. The victims were each shot once in the eye and stacked like kindling in a back bedroom.

Today, surviving family members - who escaped or were not in the house at the time - are speaking publicly for the first time about the physical, mental and sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Wesson. They shared their story to coincide with the release of a new book, "Where Hope Begins," written by Fresno reporter Alysia Sofios, who covered the case and ultimately welcomed Wesson family members into her home.

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Together, in interviews and through the book, a picture was painted of a terrifying past, and of a future that began for those who survived on March 12, 2004, the day Wesson was taken into custody for one of the worst family mass murders in California history.

Wesson controlled every part of family members' lives, from what they ate and wore to with whom they talked. The boys in the family were not allowed to talk to their sisters. Girls were not allowed to talk to their mother. All were taught they were safe only when at home with him, but they were beaten mercilessly. The beatings - with tree branches or cable cords yanked out of the wall - would last longer if the child moved or made any noise.

Awareness over time

In the months after the killings, Wesson's wife and children continued to express their support for the killer. Slowly, though, time and distance have brought awareness and grief.

Wesson's sons now talk in a detached way about being beaten as children for doing things such things as eating an extra spoonful of peanut butter, asking a question, or simply "having the wrong vibe."

"He was all I knew," said 34-year-old Adrian Wesson, who lives and works in San Francisco. "He was my dad. He was God. I was mortally afraid of him. There were times as a child when I could not speak, when I would defecate in my pants, when I could not walk for a week because the beatings were so bad."

Fearing for his life

Another son, Serafino Wesson, 24, who lives in Fresno and works as a security guard, said, "Without knowing it, we had an invisible gun to our heads. I was brainwashed. If I had ever talked up to him or tried to stop anything he did, I would not be alive today."

Marcus Wesson's wife, Elizabeth, was 8 years old when the hulking man, then living with her mother, began molesting her. Elizabeth was 15 when she married Wesson and had the first of their 11 children (two died at birth). Elizabeth said Wesson told her from the day they met that he owned her. He threatened to kill her if she ever left him.

"He practically raised me," said Elizabeth, who lives in Sofios' home in Fresno. "As a child, Marcus was in my home. My mom said he could marry me. He always told me how children should be raised. I think no matter what I had done, this still would have ended in tragedy."

Trying to leave

When her husband started having children with their daughters, Elizabeth protested. She tried to leave. Wesson, who weighed close to 300 pounds, choked her until she blacked out.

Elizabeth was the last person to see any of the children alive that fateful day. (In all, Marcus Wesson fathered at least 17 children.)

Problems had begun earlier in the day when two of her nieces went to the family home to demand that Wesson give them their children back. He had recently announced he was moving the entire clan to Washington state.

With police called by the women to the small home, Wesson calmly ordered some of his older children to round up the younger ones into a back room. Elizabeth arrived at the home - where police were treating the situation as an everyday custody dispute - and made her way inside.

It was eerily quiet, and her hands shook as she opened the door to the back bedroom, she recalled. The room was dimly lit, but she saw Marcus kneeling, with his arm wrapped around their 17-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, or "Lise."

'To this day, I regret it'

"I saw Lise just looking at me, and then Marcus called my name," Elizabeth said. "He said, 'Bee (her nickname), come here,' as if I were in trouble."

She paused with the memory. "I ran. I just ran. To this day, I don't know why I ran or how I ran. To this day, I regret it."

She is haunted, too, by her daughter's expression: "Lise didn't say a word, but she looked at me like, 'Mom, it's too late.' She looked at me like she had given up."

She said she couldn't make out any other figures in the room.

Crying, Elizabeth added, "Because of that, because I didn't protect my children, I will never have peace." The children who died ranged in age from 13 months to 24 years.

What keeps her going are her children who survived.

"I want my children to have hope," said Elizabeth, who is 50 and has finally gotten the papers to file for divorce. "I don't want them to be known as 'Oh, that's Marcus' son, that's the baby killer's son.' I want my children to know they can succeed and not be judged by what Marcus did."

No longer in control

Serafino Wesson, accustomed to his father doing things like digging a grave and telling him it was for him if he made the wrong move, said, "The thing that still affects me most is something from the day of the murders. I remember police shouting for my dad to come out. When he came out, he looked directly in my eyes. He was calm, but he had this look of helplessness. I was used to seeing a look of total control. It was a real eye-opener. For the first time, I thought, 'You are not all powerful. You are just all evil.' "

He added, "Our father trained us to be soldiers. Now I'm married and have two children of my own. When my son was born, I got down on my knees and made a vow that I would give him the best life anyone could have and be nothing like my father."

'We are free'

Adrian Wesson said he didn't begin to understand what he and his family had endured until long after his father was sent to prison. Marcus Wesson, 63, is on Death Row at San Quentin.

Adrian, a personal trainer and employee at Levi Strauss & Co., didn't know that being beaten for two hours because he asked his mom to roll down a car window was anything but normal.

When he thinks of his father, he sees only a shadowy figure. "For the first time in our lives," he said, "we are free."

Author says empathy led her to open home

"Where Hope Begins" author Alysia Sofios, a television reporter for a Fox News affiliate in Fresno who covered the Marcus Wesson murders, knew she was crossing a journalistic ethical line when she invited members of the Wesson family to live with her.

Q:Why did you invite the surviving female members of the Wesson clan into your home?

A: I felt a lot of compassion toward the family. Their house had become a crime scene. They had nowhere to go.

Q:Why didn't you recuse yourself from the story, and did your boss know these women were living with you?

A: When I learned I would be covering the trial, I went in to talk with my boss. He asked me if I could be objective handling the family's reaction to what was happening in court. I said yes. I knew I could tell the story best.

Q:You are no longer doing hard news but are still reporting features. Did you make the right decision in inviting this family to live with you?

A: The odd thing with journalism is your instinct is to have compassion, but you've been taught you can't have compassion because you have to be objective. For me, it's like, wait a minute. I should be happy to have compassion. I really did think I would lose my job. I knew my life would go in a different direction. But I made the right decision.

Q:What would you say if you were to meet with Marcus Wesson on Death Row?

A: I'd want to say all of the things his family has done in spite of him.

- Julian Guthrie

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